What Does 1 Kings 8:41 Mean?
Moreover concerning a stranger, who is not of your people Israel, but comes from a far land for your name's sake;
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Moreover concerning a stranger, that is not of thy people Israel, but cometh out of a far country for thy name’s sake;THE KEY
The divine name, שֵׁם (shem, name as nature), draws the unfamiliar across distance.
THE MEANING
A person beyond your familiar circle is drawn from far away by the nature carried in God’s name. Distance and difference remain real, yet neither cancels movement toward what that name embodies.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief this undoes is that nearness to God belongs only to insiders, or that someone far away cannot be drawn near.
THE ROOT
הַנָּכְרִי
hanokri the foreigner
GROWS FROM
נכר
To recognize or mark as distinct or foreign.
The word for the stranger shares its root with words for foreignness and recognition: difference is seen, not erased. Yet the stranger is drawn by the divine name, so recognition does not have to become exclusion.
ALSO GROWS
nekar: What is foreign or belongs elsewhere.
נֵכָר
It makes the stranger’s distance a recognized difference, while the verse still describes approach.
hikkir: To recognize or discern.
הִכִּיר
The root holds both foreign distinction and recognition, showing that being seen as an outsider does not prevent being drawn near.
רְחוֹקָה
rechokah far
GROWS FROM
רח״ק
To be far or distant, and to move away or put distance between.
“far” in this verse is rechokah far. The form describes the country as distant, not the person as unreachable. Paired with “cometh,” distance becomes a measure crossed rather than the last word.
ALSO GROWS
rachoq: Far away or remote.
רָחוֹק
It names the starting distance the stranger crosses.
raḥaq: To be or become far away.
רָחַק
The verb makes distance a condition that can change, not a permanent barrier.
וּבָא
uva and he
GROWS FROM
בוא
To come, enter, or arrive.
“cometh” in this verse is uva and he. The verb can mean both coming and entering, so the movement is more than travel from elsewhere: the stranger arrives at an encounter. The name’s nature is the pull that makes this approach possible.
ALSO GROWS
bo: To come in, arrive, or enter.
בּוֹא
It shows the stranger’s movement as approach, not merely distance traveled.
mavo: An entrance or way in.
מָבוֹא
The related noun gives the movement a threshold: the one who was far away comes to an entry point.
THE PATTERN
The divine name draws people beyond familiar boundaries into approach.
Them also will I bring to my set-apart mountain, and gladden them in my house of prayer. Their ascending offerings and their sacrifices shall be received with favor upon my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.And I, if I am lifted up from the ground, will draw all humankind to myself.So that the remnant of humankind might seek out the LORD, and all the nations, upon whom my nature is called, says the LORD, who makes all these things.THE THREAD
For they shall hear of your great name, and of your gripping hand, and of your outstretched arm, when he comes and prays toward this house;The next verse names what draws the stranger: hearing the great name and the strong, outstretched hand. The shared word is שֵׁם (shem, name as nature), making the draw something the stranger hears and then seeks.
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